


Just This

by Major



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick notices Michonne spending a lot of time with someone else and doesn't like it. At all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Browneyedmami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Browneyedmami/gifts).



When Michonne moved into her own house in Alexandria, Rick noticed and understood. When Michonne got busy and the task of watching Judith fell more and more on other members of the community, he noticed and accepted it. His mind was always more at ease when the kids were with her. It was a trust thing, but Michonne had her own life. He could deal with that.

When Spencer began visiting Michonne in her new house frequently enough to get the rumor mill going, it was a little harder to take.

"What do you think they're getting up to?" Tara wiggled her eyebrows at Denise while Rick was in earshot. He dragged his eyes away and walked off before he got dragged into it.

"Something going on there?" Maggie asked him directly on another occasion when Michonne met Spencer on her porch and led him inside.

"Little headstrong, isn't he?" he asked, but what he really meant was young. Young and stupid. Michonne wouldn't - nah, not with someone like that.

He felt pretty confident that he was right and the gossip crowd was wrong until one night when Aaron and Eric were hosting a community dinner at their house. Rick was content to stand in a cluster of his original group and talk about nothing (nothing was a relief when _something_ never meant anything good) when he noticed Michonne across the living room. Spencer was standing against the wall in front of her, leaning in close and saying something that set a wide smile across her face.

Rick knew that smile. It was the smile she used around Carl and Judith. And _him_. He felt a tug in his chest so hard and abrupt it all but tipped him over. That was _his_ smile and his kids', something special and rare that belonged to his family. Like Michonne. Just like they were hers. Their unit was strong. She was part of all that. That wasn't Spencer's to take.

"You alright, Rick?" Maggie asked.

He turned his gaze to his friends and came back to the conversation, something about Daryl's new bike. He wasn't listening.

"Fine," he answered, though he felt anything but.

Glenn, it seemed, could read that much. While the others went back to talking, he leaned in close, following Rick's eyes over to Michonne and whispered, "She's not going to wait forever, dumbass."

He waited until he saw Michonne go out onto the back porch before approaching her. She looked nice. She dressed up for the party. The dress hugged her body and showed off the muscles on her arms. She was strong and beautiful in ways he felt stupid for not noticing. Or noticing and denying. This thing with Michonne was complicated. He trusted her more than anyone else in the group not just to do what was right but to guide him when he was wrong. He needed her.

He knew how fragile a bond between a man and woman could be when it was messed with, made to be more than it was. He could lose a lot of people in Alexandria and push on. That was what life looked like now, but there was more than one way to lose a person. He thought that the desperate hold he had on Michonne, to keep her in every way that mattered, was why he noticed her, knew her, wanted her but never tried. Trying meant he might fail. Failing was not an option. Not with her.

But there were plenty of ways to lose people, and _not_ trying was another one. Spencer was proving that.

"Hey." He met her at the railing, leaning against the post beside the steps.

"Hey." She turned to him with a smile that was brighter in her eyes than on her lips. It was dark enough to pretend like this was the world. Just this. Ducking out of a party and hiding out with a glass of wine and a beautiful woman. A woman he would kill or die for if it came to it.

"You enjoying the party?" he asked. It was all just noise and chatter to him. He had bigger things on his mind.

"Good food. Good people," she said. "Beats the other side any day."

"Yeah," he agreed with an amendment, "even if I could do without Eugene's twenty minute lecture on why an orc apocalypse would be worse than fighting walkers."

Michonne was equal parts amused and quizzical. "Am I the only one surprised that Daryl knew enough about _Lord of the Rings_ to play devil's advocate?"

Rick sighed through his amusement. "Maybe Merle read him bedtime stories growing up."

"Maybe _not_." Michonne turned a full smile on him, and Rick felt that tug that knew more about his feelings than he did. It wrapped around his heart and gave him a shake.

Rick finished his wine and set the glass down on the railing, eyes on his boots as he broached the subject that had been slowly eating at him all week. "So you and Spencer, you're friends now?"

Michonne gave nothing away. "We are."

Rick nodded, not knowing what to do with that but knowing he had to do something. He couldn't let it sit now.

"You sure that's wise?" he asked with a small shrug. "He's impulsive. Doesn't think things through. A guy like that? Better off watching your own back than trusting it to him."

She gave him an odd look, assessing.

"I didn't say I was going on a run with him," she said. That was for certain. Like hell would Rick let her go out of the gate with no one but Spencer to back her up. The kid almost got himself killed trying to act first and think later.

"I'm just saying," he started, locking himself into a corner since he didn't actually know _what_ he was saying, just knew it had to be said. "There are other people, better suited, that you might want to be friends with. Or more with. If that's what y'all are doing. There's others, is all."

Michonne was silent for a while. He could feel her eyes on him, but he preferred the darkness to what he might see in her face.

"Rick," she said, forcing him to look back. "When I said 'friend', I meant _friend_. Spencer has been helping me put an inflatable playhouse together for Judith that he found in one of the basements in town. The pump we had broke, so we're blowing it up manually. Four lungs are better than two. It's big."

Rick stared at her. "A playhouse."

"A playhouse."

Feeling ridiculous felt a heck of a lot better than feeling jealous. Rick laughed, but it was short. Feeling like a fool felt better but not good.

Michonne touched his arm. There was still mirth in her eyes at his expense, but there was something else too. Something that brought the fantasy back. Just this. Just them.

"Is there something you want to say?" she asked.

All of his floundering trailed away, and he knew what to do now.

"I could," he said, looking off in the darkness towards the fence that kept them safe and nodded. "But there's something I want to do that would say more."

When their eyes met, he felt the tug in his chest turn into a pull. A tie that lanced between them and created gravity where before he had floated untethered, free to roam. He didn't want to be free anymore.

Michonne's hand hadn't left his arm. "Then maybe you should do it."

Rick took a moment to look at her, see her. This was good. This was right. He wouldn't let it go bad. The rest of the world could fall, the fences could crash, the town could fail, but this - _them_ \- he would keep with his last fighting breath. Carl, Judith, and Michonne: that was his life now, all the parts that mattered most.

He kissed her, wanting her to feel all that she meant to him even if it couldn't be said just yet. When Michonne kissed him back, he felt that resolve mirrored his way. The tie between them burned like steel and water, growing strong and rushing forward. He pulled her against him and held on.


End file.
